i
What they meant by give the people
back their streets was let the vast
machines back in, this city grinding
gears inside the garden
in the animal in me.

I remain years behind, years
as in wandering, insoluble
nostos. I never meant
to this world; I am not meaning,
not promise, not time. I can’t
even promise myself:
what I own is not I.
Indifferent anthem
of the sun.

In the agon, after demolition:
       ghost town swept by cops
              where color is a contraband


          ii
How will it be
to be human again?
I’ve been to such silences
as a sudden flag
embracing its pole,
where I saw hollow bodies
multiply like bells. I know
a fire wishes me well.

The hides split open, yes.
I surrendered half a life’s anger, yes.
I surrendered solace, too.

In the agora, after demolition:
       a post-it, a democracy dog,
              and a congregation


          iii
Did holding hands in the rain
change the nature of rain?
Four kids kick a ball on a field
so vast that one falls asleep
in a goal made of netting.
Wilderness is something else here.
It’s one trombone against a world’s
traffic, lyre of a ribcage
rumbling and flayed.

I am a grotesque
mouthpiece now, but you
wouldn’t know it: they
keep scrubbing me clean.

In the orpheum, after demolition:
       a hooded speaker fights for volume
              against the old freedom ballad

sung nearby for small change.


          iiii
The earth was an eggshell
full of black hole.
The sense of belonging

left a trauma on the body.
It was the body’s last trauma.

Here was a thing which changed my life:
I stood inside the calm eye of a storm
with wings enough to set the gates free.

The eggshell swallowed the storm.
Language blew out like a sleeve.

This city—kissed by a chimera
and even I spend my best years
in a golden future’s cage.